


The Truth Begins In Lies

by impossiblesongs



Series: Pages Left To Write On (We Will Fill It With Words) [9]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Amy-centric, Episode: s07e00 Pond Life, F/M, I live a Pond Appreciation Life, Pre-Episode: s07e01 Asylum of the Daleks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 14:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10743210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblesongs/pseuds/impossiblesongs
Summary: This is a secret, a spoiler. It’s not just a horrible display of what the Doctor fears most, it’s his every single lie.– As the Doctor has a nightmare Amy glimpses at the truth of River’s fate.





	The Truth Begins In Lies

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
>  **AN:** Angst. Sorry. Title from a quote by Gregory House in the pilot episode of House. 
> 
> This was just a horrible culmination of thought in Amy's ordeal in the beginning of Season 7 and the slight break-up of the Pond-William's marriage that followed through in that season opener, the miniseries of "Pond Life" as reference as well. I thought perhaps it was more than just the whole "Amy can't have any more of Rory's babies" idea because I never fully saw that as a reason strong enough to tear the Ponds apart and instead maybe something she wasn't meant to glimpse combined with that would be a more, let's face it, horrid reason for the hopelessness. I dunno. Read on for yourselves.

Amy wakes from a buzzing in her ear. Rory is snoring lightly beside her, undeterred by the current annoyance.

 

_Of course._

 

A few more disgruntled tosses and turns, a force of will to get back to her beauty sleep, and the buzzing starts to feel a whole lot like rattling. Rattling and shaking, only instead of the sound filling the room it’s in her head.

 

“Oh, _alright_!” she grumbles unhappily, knowing the Tardis’s methods well enough to catch on that the Old Girl want something. Kicking the covers off of herself without any regards to Rory, Amy stomps from her bed and over to toss on her robe before exiting their room. Rory snores on and on.

 

“Keeping him oblivious, are you?” Amy gripes to the Doctor’s ship as she wanders the winding corridors. “What is it then?” she prods the ship. She’s not really expecting a quick answer but she makes a show of tapping her bare feet on the floor impatiently anyway, crossing her arms across her chest and pouting. No answer is given to her and not for the first time does Amy wish River were here. That daughter of theirs could read and hear the Doctor’s ship better than any of them could ever hope to. And yes, she means that. The Doctor’s denials be damned.

 

 _Fine_. If the Tardis is deciding no further clues are to be offered, then Amy is of the notion that something nice and warm to drink from the kitchen will do. If she has to be up in the middle of god know what time it is, playing at guessing games, then she might as well be doing something comfortable while she’s at it.

 

Usually it takes one turn to the left and another corridor to pass straight through the console room and into the kitchen area but tonight the Tardis is all about making her go this way and that. The swimming pool happens to turn up twice and both times in the rooms right next to each other. Eventually Amy turns up at the entrance way leading out towards the console room but by that hour she’s nice and cranky and just waiting to holler all about it to anyone who’ll listen only Amy stops right dead in her sights at the glimpse of him.

 

The Doctor is slumped right over the side of his console looking all the more raggedy than Amy’s seen in a long time. By the looks of it, he’s drifted off to sleep at the spot without meaning to.

 

A helpless grin pops up on her face. She means to walk over and wake him with a light scolding before shooing him off to bed properly. If anyone needs a full night of sleep the way he bumbles around, it’s the Doctor.

 

As Amy wanders closer she sees that he’s trembling and there’s a sheen of sweat that clings to his brow.

 

“No, please,” the Doctor begs, a pained whimper escaping him. His body writhes, frame taught with tension, caught in the place his dreams are holding him captive. He cries out so suddenly that Amy nearly lets out a scream of her own, just managing to keep herself from doing so by placing her own palm up and over her mouth. Suddenly his hand shoots out, seeking, seemingly trying to close around something that is not there, and failing.

 

Amy stands there, not close enough for him to truly grasp at, yet terrified. She’s never heard or seen him in such a state.

 

“ _Please_ , no,” he gasps, breaking into a sob. Shaking from head to toe. “ _River_!”

 

Her daughter’s name stumbles from his lips in a torturous whisper, feverous and urgent. Amy finds herself being seized by something sharp and cold, something holding her frozen in place, unrelenting in a place she very much shouldn’t be, watching, waiting.

 

“Please don’t… don’t leave me, don’t…. please.” The Doctor’s final plea comes blurting out of his lips, helpless in every sense and truly afraid. “Don’t,” and his voice breaks. A torturous sob wrenching itself out from deep down, one that’s hidden itself, always alive and breathing, settled right between each of his hearts, “don’t _die_.”

 

It appears even in sleep the Doctor can’t muster the energy to bring his fears to life fully.

 

The silence settles in the console room and the Tardis stops her humming.

 

The request had rumbled out from the Doctor’s mouth and into the world in a traitorous whisper, but Amy’s heard it and now she can’t stop hearing it.

 

_Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die._

 

Amy knows the Doctor, knows the sound of him when he’s speaking with all resounding certainty and not just fear, now this too has tumbled out, unbidden and without meaning, and now she knows.

 

This is a secret, a spoiler. It’s not just a horrible display of what the Doctor fears most, it’s his every single lie.

 

Numbly, Amy turns her back on the Doctor and navigates her way to the bedroom she and Rory share, ignoring the reasons to why the Tardis would want to show her this. She climbs back in bed and hides herself beneath the covers, not able to reach the warmth of Rory beside her or the tears she knows she should cry.

 

The next morning the Doctor smiles easily, big and goofy and what she knows now, recognizes, is a blatant _lie_. But Amy can’t help herself, she smiles back. She can’t face it. Not yet.

 

The Doctor drops them off two weeks later and promises another bigger, better adventure for next time. Amy says goodbye with heart, hugging her Raggedy Man as if nothing is wrong, as if she’s ever oblivious to the truth of his lies.

 

Slowly and eventually, the Doctor’s visits begin to come less and less and farther in-between. Amy worries over River’s safety constantly. She finds herself fidgeting with restlessness until their daughter comes home and then clings onto the woman Melody Pond has grown to be just a little bit tighter than ever before, knowing it’s slightly suffocating but River merely smiles and lets her. Amy is so proud, and so thankful, and she is so, _so_ scared. A ‘scared’ Amy that hasn’t allowed herself to process yet. Holding River, Amy can feel her baby. _Finally_ , the connection. The truth of it. That small, helpless being in her arms, on the battle of Demon’s Run. River is her baby and they are one in the same. The child that had been taken from her so long ago, how had it taken her so long to compute it, this?

 

One day, one goodbye, and it settles. Truly settles. Finally.

 

_Don’t die._

 

River is being taken from her all over again.

 

It comes in a chill that cools Amy’s insides. A devastation, resignation, so utterly numbing at first that it takes several weeks before she breaks completely.

 

 _Raggedy man, we need you,_ she calls for her Doctor, because she needs one. Because everything is falling apart.

 

And she can’t have children. _Can’t_. And she wonders, stuck in their timey-wimey galaxy of worlds that happened and worlds that never existed, did she ever really have her? Her baby? Her River?

 

_Don’t die._

 

She kicks Rory out not long after and files for divorce papers.


End file.
